Corruption at FIFA? Surely not!

And here I was, thinking that all those envelopes circulating in hotel board rooms were just contributions to the church building fund. My, my, what will we find next from FIFA's band of irreproachable gentlemen?

It was just a matter of time. Investigative journalists for years have made the case that the governing body of world football was riven with corruption. In truth, given the lucre controlled by FIFA, and the lack of transparency in the organisation, it was all but guaranteed that corruption would worm its way into the organisation.

And as corruption spread unchecked, the only thing keeping the lid from blowing off was something akin to the old nuclear theory of mutually assured destruction. No FIFA official had an interest spilling the goods on anyone else, since they could do the same right back.

If stable, this tension was also volatile. Because the stakes were lower than those which obtained in nuclear proliferation - instead of the world being destroyed, it would be just careers - all it took to trigger a chain reaction was for the career of a central player to be threatened. Enter Sepp Blatter. When it looked like the presidency of FIFA might ebb away from him, as a rival from Qatar built up support among delegates, FIFA announced the suspension of two executive members, pending investigations into alleged corruption on their part.

Farcical Election

Officially, there is no coincidence in the timing of the announcement, which came just days before the election of FIFA's president. But since one of the executive members was Mr Blatter's rival for the post, and the other was someone suspected to have lined up key backing for said rival in the election, Mr Blatter asked all of us to trust an organisation whose reputation is now in tatters.

Lo and behold, with Mr Blatter's opponents sidelined, the election proceeded and - now here's a surprise - Mr Blatter won. With his renewed mandate, he said he would clean up FIFA. This sounds a bit like Charlie Sheen offering to guard a harem.

Anyhow, the real challenge to Mr Blatter comes not from within FIFA, but from without. FIFA manages the international tournaments among nations which have brought it so much money. However, these tournaments are subsidised by the privately owned football clubs which pay the salaries of the star players in the World Cup. With the cost of the World Cup squads, therefore, borne largely by club owners, and the benefits accruing to FIFA, there has existed an obvious incentive for clubs to lessen the involvement of their players in international matches.

Power brokers

This tension hasgrown especially acute in the last few years. With the costs of owning and managing professional football clubs rising ever higher, football owners are even less likely to regard international friendlies and tournaments as their civic duty. The brand brought to global football by these showcase tournaments gave FIFA some leverage. However, with that brand now diminished, and the legitimacy of the process by which tournaments are assigned now in question, club owners may exploit what is a moment of weakness in the international governing body.

After all, Champions League matches are beginning to draw audiences that rival those of World Cup fixtures. Football may gradually begin to look a little more like basketball, in which almost all the action takes place among clubs, with little in the way of international tournaments.

Writing in London's Guardian newspaper, Matt Scott argues that European club owners may decide to press their advantage with the courts, now that FIFA has become so suspect. If they can diminish the participation of their players' in international tournaments, they might be able to create a European super league.

The result could be that football becomes both more and less globalised: less so, as the flagship international tournaments diminish in importance; but more so, as global financial capital alters the character of international play in favour of transnational club football.

And if FIFA loses out, its leaders will be hard-pressed to deny it was their own fault.

John Rapley is the Bradlow fellow at the South African Institute of International Affairs. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and rapley.john@gmail.com.